Massive molecular outflows and evidence for AGN feedback from CO observations

By C. Cicone, R. Maiolino, E. Sturm, J. Graciá-Carpio, C. Feruglio, R. Neri, S. Aalto, Roger Davies, Fabrizio Fiore, J. Fischer and 5 more. 2013

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We study the properties of massive, galactic-scale outflows of molecular gas and investigate their impact on galaxy evolution. We present new IRAMPdBI CO(1-0) observations of local ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) and quasar-hosts: a clear signature of massive and energetic molecular outflows, extending on kpc scales, is found in the CO(1-0) kinematics of four out of seven sources, with measured outflow rates of several 100M(circle dot)yr(-1). We combine these new observations with data from the literature, and explore the nature and origin of massive molecular outflows within an extended sample of 19 local galaxies. We find that starburst-dominated galaxies have an outflow rate comparable to their star formation rate (SFR), or even higher by a factor of similar to 2-4, implying that starbursts can indeed be effective in removing cold gas from galaxies. Nevertheless, our results suggest that the presence of an active galactic nucleus (AGN) can boost the outflow rate by a large factor, which is found to increase with the L-AGN/L-bol ratio. The gas depletion time scales due to molecular outflows are anti-correlated with the presence and luminosity of an AGN in these galaxies, and range from a few hundred million years in starburst galaxies down to just a few million years in galaxies hosting powerful AGNs. In quasar hosts, the depletion time scales due to the outflow are much shorter than the depletion time scales due to star formation. We estimate the outflow kinetic power and find that, for galaxies hosting powerful AGNs, it corresponds to about 5% of the AGN luminosity, as expected by models of AGN feedback. Moreover, we find that momentum rates of about 20 L-AGN/c are common among the AGN-dominated sources in our sample. For "pure" starburst galaxies, our data tentatively support models in which outflows are mostly momentum-driven by the radiation pressure from young stars onto dusty clouds. Overall, our results indicate that, although starbursts are effective in powering massive molecular outflows, the presence of an AGN may strongly enhance such outflows, and therefore have a profound feedback effect on the evolution of galaxies by efficiently removing fuel for star formation, hence quenching star formation.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e49b1ac6be152076515288d513e53546d8f11e05

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Citations in the corpus

The bolometric quasar luminosity function at z = 0–7 (2020, background): “…2005; Bower et al. 2006; Croton et al. 2006; Sijacki et al. 2007; Somerville et al. 2008; Hopkins et al. 2008; Feruglio et al. 2010; Fabian 2012; Cicone et al. 2014) and solve the classical "cooling flow" problem (e.g., Cowie & Binney 1977; Fabian & Nulsen 1977; Fabian et al. 1984; Tabor &…”
X-shooter reveals powerful outflows in z ∼ 1.5 X-ray selected obscured quasi-stellar objects (2014, result): “…those without Seyfert nuclei do not show the complex and extended kinematics observed in their active siblings (see also Zakamska & Greene 2014; see similar results on striking differences in the molecular gas outflow properties of AGN ULIRGs versus non-AGN ULIRGs presented in Cicone et al. 2014).”
The biggest splash (2019, background): “These striking discoveries have been preceded by a decade of mounting evidence for molecular gas outflows (see e.g. Feruglio et al. 2010; Sturm et al. 2011; Cicone et al. 2014).”
The COSMOS2015 galaxy stellar mass function . Thirteen billion years of stellar mass assembly in ten snapshots (2017, background): “Their CO and [CII] mapping indicates that, although AGN are able to remove a large amount of molecular gas (Maiolino et al. 2012; Cicone et al. 2014), they do not prevent extended cold clouds from fueling star formation (Cicone et al. 2015).”
SDSS IV MaNGA – metallicity and nitrogen abundance gradients in local galaxies (2017, background): “G Veilleux et al. 2005; Tremonti et al. 2007; Feruglio et al. 2010; Sturm et al. 2011; Cano-Díaz et al. 2012; Maiolino et al. 2012; Cicone et al. 2014), both in the local Universe and at high redshift.”
The fast molecular outflow in the Seyfert galaxy IC 5063 as seen by ALMA (2015, methodology): “…the accretion disk, launched by radiation pressure, interacting and shocking the surrounding Article published by EDP Sciences A1, page 1 of 11 medium is often favoured (e.g. Zubovas & King 2012, 2014; Costa et al. 2014; Cicone et al. 2014), the role of the radio plasma has also gained interest.”
The multi-phase winds of Markarian 231: from the hot, nuclear, ultra-fast wind to the galaxy-scale, molecular outflow (2015, background): “Finally, fast (up to 1000-2000 km s−1) molecular gas, extending on kpc scales is found in a few dozen, mostly highly obscured, AGN in dusty SFGs (Feruglio et al. 2010, Cicone et al. 2014, and Veilleux et al. 2013 for compilations of molecular outflows).”
GASP. I. Gas Stripping Phenomena in Galaxies with MUSE (2017, background): “…are now observed both at low- and high-z, though what fraction of the outflowing gas rains back onto the galaxy is still an open question (Feruglio et al. 2010; Steidel et al. 2010; Fabian 2012; Bolatto et al. 2013; Cicone et al. 2014; Genzel et al. 2014; Wagg et al. 2014; Cresci et al. 2015).”
Bulge mass is king: the dominant role of the bulge in determining the fraction of passive galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2014, background): “…out of cold gas from the centre of galaxies in cataclysmic events such as during enhanced periods of nuclear activity throughout the major merging of gas rich galaxies (see Nulsen et al. 2005, Dunn et al. 2010, Feruglio et al. 2010, Fabian 2012, and Cicone et al. 2014 for observational evidence).”
Kiloparsec-scale outflows are prevalent among luminous AGN: outflows and feedback in the context of the overall AGN population (2014, background): “These models predict momentum rates ofṖout ≈ 10–40LAGN/c on≈1–10 kpc scales that is in good agreement with our observations (Figure 12) as well as multi-gasphase outflow observations of other AGN (e.g., Cicone et al. 2014; Zubovas & King 2012 and references there-in).”
The Illustris simulation: the evolving population of black holes across cosmic time (2014, background): “Thus from the observational point of view this remains an unsettled point, even though there is accumulating evidence for AGN-driven large scale outflows (Cicone et al. 2012; Maiolino et al. 2012; Cicone et al. 2014; Genzel et al. 2014).”
Neutral hydrogen in galaxy haloes at the peak of the cosmic star formation history (2014, background): “Recently, direct observational evidence for powerful, wide-angle, galaxy-scale, quasar-driven outflows has emerged (e.g., Moe et al. 2009; Feruglio et al. 2010; Sturm et al. 2011; Rupke & Veilleux 2011; Greene et al. 2012; Maiolino et al. 2012; Harrison et al. 2014; Cicone et al. 2014).”
xCOLD GASS: The Complete IRAM 30 m Legacy Survey of Molecular Gas for Galaxy Evolution Studies (2017, background): “On the other hand, the ability of AGN to drive massive molecular gas outflows (Sturm et al. 2011; Costa et al. 2014; Cicone et al. 2014) suggests a different scenario for the link between molecular gas and AGN activity.”
Constraining the properties of AGN host galaxies with spectral energy distribution modelling (2015, background): “There is indeed increasing observational evidence for AGN-driven winds at both the local Universe and high redshift (e.g Crenshaw et al. 2003; Blustin et al. 2005; Tombesi et al. 2010, 2012; Saez & Chartas 2011; Lanzuisi et al. 2012; Cicone et al. 2012, 2014; Harrison et al. 2014).”
Molecular line emission in NGC 1068 imaged with ALMA: I. An AGN-driven outflow in the dense molecular gas (2014, methodology): “If we assume a multi-conical outflow uniformly filled by the outflowing clouds (Maiolino et al. 2012; Cicone et al. 2014), the mass load rate (dM/dt) can be estimated from the expression dM dt = 3 × Vout × Mmol/Rout × tan(α).”
Impact of supermassive black hole growth on star formation (2017, background): “Example evidence that AGN-driven outflows may have a significant impact upon star formation is that the measured mass outflow rates of molecular outflows in rare low redshift ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) and quasar host galaxies appear to exceed the concurrent star-formation rates[50] (”